Load and performance testing web applications will allow you to determine whether or not your deployment will require a clustered environment. When the test results show that the current throughput is restricted by the capacity of the server but target workloads are not yet met, this is a situation where you can achieve higher scalability by implementing clusters to your environment. Clustering achieves higher scalability by introducing more servers or nodes to expand the capacity of the environment. Obviously, the benefits of adding hardware include higher capacity, reliability, availability, and scalability. But also consider that clustering also adds complexity to your deployment by requiring added maintenance and an increased need for deployment/upgrade automation. To ensure quality of the environment you must always validate your clustered environment and prove out the increased scalability. Use a methodical performance testing approach. Don't try to extrapolate! It's not as easy as "3 nodes in a cluster will support 3x the workload."

Why Cluster?An efficiently tuned deployment will, in turn, display an efficient use of server resources (memory, CPU, i/o, etc). Using a cluster increases the number of servers and distributes the workload amongst several servers. This even distribution of the workload can dramatically increase scalability. Not only can this improve the end user experience by reaching higher workloads with predictable response times but it can increase the reliability and stability of the deployment. The cluster acts as a single server so the loss or shutdown of any of the nodes in the cluster will not result in loss of sessions or application data. In the end, the user experience is less frequently interrupted and isn't affected by a single maxed out server or a loss of a server.

Tuning TipsWhen performance or load testing your application uncovers a clear need to introduce clusters or farms to support the target workload, you will want to take into account the following considerations: First you should configure the cluster efficiently for internal maintenance such as data synchronization and heartbeat communications. User sessions which live in memory are more quickly failed over to another node in the cluster instead of persisting them to the database. However, writing the sessions to disk is more permanent which may have its own advantages. Make sure you have tested the performance prices for data synchronization and heartbeat communications. The goal is to configure the cluster to increase scalability with as little overhead as possible.

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Load BalancersLoad balancers are generally placed out in front of the clusters. These load balancers can be a software solution or a hardware solution. Their job is to distribute the load evenly to the nodes in the cluster. Just as important, LB's reroute traffic when one node of the cluster goes down. This allows for the "transparency" of several servers acting as one. There are several more mature algorithms for distribution than traditional "round robins." Smarter LB's takes into account the CPU and resource usage and overall load of each server and their job is to direct the request to the least loaded server. The number of active users doesn't always equate to more resources being actively used, rather it depends on the types of transactions being executed - lightweight vs. expensive transactions. Smart LB's will detect workload and direct incoming traffic based on resource usage. Often LB's will use sticky sessions based on the client's cookie and/or IP address to route subsequent requests to the same node of cluster where the user session lives. Whenload testing these types of environments, it's a requirement to have a load tool which supports IP Spoofing. This is used to generate the load of many virtual users using multiple IP addresses all from a single machine. Otherwise, the total load would go to a single cluster node.

Types of ClusteringClustering can be achieved using a few common techniques. Vertical clustering adds capacity to the deployment by installing multiple nodes of a cluster on a single machine. With this approach you must take into consideration the physical limitations of that machine (CPU, memory, i/o) and be careful not over utilize resources; otherwise adding more nodes becomes pointless due to saturation. Horizontal clusters refer to deploying more physical machines. With this approach, each physical machine can run one or more of the nodes of the cluster. Cloud bursting is a way of having a node both within the LAN and a node in the Cloud to be turned "on" during high volume usage or be strategically placed in different geographical locations. The appropriate technique really depends on the specifics of your environment. If you need more capacity and you have beefy infrastructure servers but do not have enough web servers or app servers to fully utilize the underlying hardware, choose the vertical clustering approach by adding more nodes to the same machine. On the other hand, if more physical resources are needed to handle the workload, then build out a horizontal cluster by adding more hardware and deploying more nodes.

How to Load Test a Cluster?It's important to take a methodical approach to load testing a clustered environment. Load patterns such as ramping tests allow you to identify the current capacity as well as increased scalability as you add more nodes to the cluster. Remember that doubling the number of nodes in a cluster does not equate to doubling its capacity. Many components impact its performance gain such as the communications between the nodes used to just make the cluster work properly. The resource cost increases dramatically with the number of nodes. Capacity is relative and is dependent on myriad other components within the infrastructure. For example, adding another node to the cluster may give the application layer 2x the throughput (although this is not really possible due to "housekeeping" from internal administration overhead to maintain that cluster), but let's say the single webserver out front is already using all its worker threads, then requests will be queued while waiting for a thread to become available and overall throughput will not increase. Only through the analysis of load test results will you completely understand the increased scalability effects of a cluster. Consider another scenario: You have identified a need for building out a cluster of application servers, however you deploy too many nodes resulting in a backlog of requests on the shared database. Performance and load testing will uncover this vulnerability and many other potential scenarios that could otherwise go undetected. Having a comparison analysis feature built right into the load tool will allow you to run tests back to back, after turning on/off nodes in the cluster, and quickly visualize the differences. Also, having the tool with a built-in cloud load generation feature will save time and money setting up and maintaining the performance architecture environment, especially for high load tests.

The Right Approach?Adding clustering to a deployment allows a web application to achieve higher workloads and gives the advantage of higher availability. However, you must conduct performance tests in order to build out an efficient cluster which meets your goals. Don't forget to weigh the benefits vs. added maintenance complexity/cost. Clusters require a high level of expertise to implement and maintain so they aren't the best solution in every situation. Make sure all moving parts are documented and insist on a complete architectural diagram for future systems administrators (diagrams to include hierarchical transaction pathways as well as location of each node in the cluster including the admin consoles). In the end it's all about delivering the best possible end user experience and in many cases clustering is an excellent solution for increasing scalability of your web deployments.

Rebecca Clinard is a Senior Performance Engineer at Neotys, a provider of load testing software for Web applications. Previously, she worked as a web application performance engineer for Bowstreet, Fidelity Investments, Bottomline Technologies and Timberland companies, industries spanning retail, financial services, insurance and manufacturing. Her expertise lies in creating realistic load tests and performance tuning multi-tier deployments. She has been orchestrating and conducting performance tests since 2001. Clinard graduated from University of New Hampshire with a BS and also holds a UNIX Certificate from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

SYS-CON Events announced today that HPM Networks will exhibit at the 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
For 20 years, HPM Networks has been integrating technology solutions that solve complex business challenges. HPM Networks has designed solutions for both SMB and enterprise customers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

For IoT to grow as quickly as analyst firms’ project, a lot is going to fall on developers to quickly bring applications to market. But the lack of a standard development platform threatens to slow growth and make application development more time consuming and costly, much like we’ve seen in the mobile space.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Mike Weiner, Product Manager of the Omega DevCloud with KORE Telematics Inc., discussed the evolving requirements for developers as IoT matures and conducted a live demonstration of how quickly application development can happen when the need to comply wit...

The Internet of Everything (IoE) brings together people, process, data and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before – transforming information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. IoE creates new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented opportunities to improve business and government operations, decision making and mission support capabilities.

Explosive growth in connected devices. Enormous amounts of data for collection and analysis. Critical use of data for split-second decision making and actionable information. All three are factors in making the Internet of Things a reality. Yet, any one factor would have an IT organization pondering its infrastructure strategy.
How should your organization enhance its IT framework to enable an Internet of Things implementation? In his session at @ThingsExpo, James Kirkland, Red Hat's Chief Architect for the Internet of Things and Intelligent Systems, described how to revolutionize your archit...

MuleSoft has announced the findings of its 2015 Connectivity Benchmark Report on the adoption and business impact of APIs.
The findings suggest traditional businesses are quickly evolving into "composable enterprises" built out of hundreds of connected software services, applications and devices. Most are embracing the Internet of Things (IoT) and microservices technologies like Docker. A majority are integrating wearables, like smart watches, and more than half plan to generate revenue with APIs within the next year.

Growth hacking is common for startups to make unheard-of progress in building their business. Career Hacks can help Geek Girls and those who support them (yes, that's you too, Dad!) to excel in this typically male-dominated world.
Get ready to learn the facts:
Is there a bias against women in the tech / developer communities?
Why are women 50% of the workforce, but hold only 24% of the STEM or IT positions?
Some beginnings of what to do about it!
In her Opening Keynote at 16th Cloud Expo, Sandy Carter, IBM General Manager Cloud Ecosystem and Developers, and a Social Business Evangelist, d...

In his keynote at 16th Cloud Expo, Rodney Rogers, CEO of Virtustream, discussed the evolution of the company from inception to its recent acquisition by EMC – including personal insights, lessons learned (and some WTF moments) along the way. Learn how Virtustream’s unique approach of combining the economics and elasticity of the consumer cloud model with proper performance, application automation and security into a platform became a breakout success with enterprise customers and a natural fit for the EMC Federation.

The Internet of Things is not only adding billions of sensors and billions of terabytes to the Internet. It is also forcing a fundamental change in the way we envision Information Technology. For the first time, more data is being created by devices at the edge of the Internet rather than from centralized systems. What does this mean for today's IT professional?
In this Power Panel at @ThingsExpo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed this very serious issue of profound change in the industry.

Discussions about cloud computing are evolving into discussions about enterprise IT in general. As enterprises increasingly migrate toward their own unique clouds, new issues such as the use of containers and microservices emerge to keep things interesting.
In this Power Panel at 16th Cloud Expo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists addressed the state of cloud computing today, and what enterprise IT professionals need to know about how the latest topics and trends affect their organization.

It is one thing to build single industrial IoT applications, but what will it take to build the Smart Cities and truly society-changing applications of the future? The technology won’t be the problem, it will be the number of parties that need to work together and be aligned in their motivation to succeed.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jason Mondanaro, Director, Product Management at Metanga, discussed how you can plan to cooperate, partner, and form lasting all-star teams to change the world and it starts with business models and monetization strategies.

Converging digital disruptions is creating a major sea change - Cisco calls this the Internet of Everything (IoE). IoE is the network connection of People, Process, Data and Things, fueled by Cloud, Mobile, Social, Analytics and Security, and it represents a $19Trillion value-at-stake over the next 10 years.
In her keynote at @ThingsExpo, Manjula Talreja, VP of Cisco Consulting Services, discussed IoE and the enormous opportunities it provides to public and private firms alike. She will share what businesses must do to thrive in the IoE economy, citing examples from several industry sectors.

There will be 150 billion connected devices by 2020. New digital businesses have already disrupted value chains across every industry. APIs are at the center of the digital business. You need to understand what assets you have that can be exposed digitally, what their digital value chain is, and how to create an effective business model around that value chain to compete in this economy. No enterprise can be complacent and not engage in the digital economy. Learn how to be the disruptor and not the disruptee.

Akana has released Envision, an enhanced API analytics platform that helps enterprises mine critical insights across their digital eco-systems, understand their customers and partners and offer value-added personalized services.
“In today’s digital economy, data-driven insights are proving to be a key differentiator for businesses. Understanding the data that is being tunneled through their APIs and how it can be used to optimize their business and operations is of paramount importance,” said Alistair Farquharson, CTO of Akana.

Business as usual for IT is evolving into a "Make or Buy" decision on a service-by-service conversation with input from the LOBs. How does your organization move forward with cloud? In his general session at 16th Cloud Expo, Paul Maravei, Regional Sales Manager, Hybrid Cloud and Managed Services at Cisco, discusses how Cisco and its partners offer a market-leading portfolio and ecosystem of cloud infrastructure and application services that allow you to uniquely and securely combine cloud business applications and services across multiple cloud delivery models.

The enterprise market will drive IoT device adoption over the next five years.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, John Greenough, an analyst at BI Intelligence, division of Business Insider, analyzed how companies will adopt IoT products and the associated cost of adopting those products.
John Greenough is the lead analyst covering the Internet of Things for BI Intelligence- Business Insider’s paid research service. Numerous IoT companies have cited his analysis of the IoT. Prior to joining BI Intelligence, he worked analyzing bank technology for Corporate Insight and The Clearing House Payment...

"Optimal Design is a technology integration and product development firm that specializes in connecting devices to the cloud," stated Joe Wascow, Co-Founder & CMO of Optimal Design, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

SYS-CON Events announced today that CommVault has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 17th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. A singular vision – a belief in a better way to address current and future data management needs – guides CommVault in the development of Singular Information Management® solutions for high-performance data protection, universal availability and simplified management of data on complex storage networks. CommVault's exclusive single-platform architecture gives companies unp...

Electric Cloud and Arynga have announced a product integration partnership that will bring Continuous Delivery solutions to the automotive Internet-of-Things (IoT) market. The joint solution will help automotive manufacturers, OEMs and system integrators adopt DevOps automation and Continuous Delivery practices that reduce software build and release cycle times within the complex and specific parameters of embedded and IoT software systems.

"ciqada is a combined platform of hardware modules and server products that lets people take their existing devices or new devices and lets them be accessible over the Internet for their users," noted Geoff Engelstein of ciqada, a division of Mars International, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

Internet of Things is moving from being a hype to a reality. Experts estimate that internet connected cars will grow to 152 million, while over 100 million internet connected wireless light bulbs and lamps will be operational by 2020. These and many other intriguing statistics highlight the importance of Internet powered devices and how market penetration is going to multiply many times over in the next few years.

As organizations realize the scope of the Internet of Things, gaining key insights from Big Data, through the use of advanced analytics, becomes crucial. However, IoT also creates the need for petabyte scale storage of data from millions of devices. A new type of Storage is required which seamlessly integrates robust data analytics with massive scale. These storage systems will act as “smart systems” provide in-place analytics that speed discovery and enable businesses to quickly derive meaningful and actionable insights.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Paul Turner, Chief Marketing Officer at...

Digital Transformation is the ultimate goal of cloud computing and related initiatives. The phrase is certainly not a precise one, and as subject to hand-waving and distortion as any high-falutin' terminology in the world of information technology.
Yet it is an excellent choice of words to describe what enterprise IT—and by extension, organizations in general—should be working to achieve.
Digital Transformation means:
handling all the data types being found and created in the organization
understanding that through mobility, data is being generated and analyzed on the edges of the e...

DevOps is first and foremost a mindset – any DevOps initiative must begin with a cultural change. Last Tuesday, I participated in an online panel on the subject of Implementing a DevOps Culture, as part of Continuous Discussions (#c9d9), a series of community panels about Agile, Continuous Delivery and DevOps. Watch a recording of the panel:
Continuous Discussions is a community initiative by Electric Cloud, which powers Continuous Delivery at businesses like SpaceX, Cisco, GE and E*TRADE by automating their build, test and deployment processes.

You often hear the two titles of "DevOps" and "Immutable Infrastructure" used independently.
In his session at DevOps Summit, John Willis, Technical Evangelist for Docker, covered the union between the two topics and why this is important. He provided an overview of Immutable Infrastructure then showed how an Immutable Continuous Delivery pipeline can be applied as a best practice for "DevOps." He ended the session with some interesting case study examples.

The majority of an organization’s revenues are dependent on suppliers, distributors and other third parties. But as Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York State’s Superintendent of Financial Services, points out: “Unfortunately, those third-party firms can provide a back-door entrance to hackers who are seeking to steal sensitive bank customer data.”
By now most everyone is well aware of the major data breaches afflicting Target and Home Depot – both triggered through a third party – that affected more than 100 million consumers. But the problem persists. A recent report from the New York State Departm...

Tableau Software and big data analytics platforms come together to provide visualization benefits for those seeking more than just crunched numbers.
The next BriefingsDirect big data innovation discussion highlights how Tableau Software and big data analytics platforms come together to provide visualization benefits for those seeking more than just crunched numbers. They're looking for ways to improve their businesses effectively and productively, and to share the analysis quickly and broadly.

Conservation International (CI) in Arlington, Virginia uses new technology to pursue more data about what's going on in tropical forests and other ecosystems around the world.
As a non-profit, they have a goal of a sustainable planet, but we're going to learn how they've learned to measure what was once unmeasurable -- and then to share that data to promote change and improvement.

Business and IT leaders today need better application delivery capabilities to support critical new innovation. But how often do you hear objections to improving application delivery like, "I can harden it against attack, but not on this timeline"; "I can make it better, but it will cost more"; "I can deliver faster, but not with these specs"; or "I can stay strong on cost control, but quality will suffer"? In the new application economy, these tradeoffs are no longer acceptable. Customers will abandon your brand forever for a slow response or a privacy breach; competitors will steal critical ...

Learn how the IoT Cloud will power the world of tomorrow and why managing IoT through the cloud is as important as cloud computing itself. Learn how the devices of tomorrow will work on business models that reflect a new business strategy and a way to consume services.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Ian Khan, Manager, Innovation & Marketing at Solgenia, will discuss how powered by the cloud and made possible by high tech manufacturing, sensors and devices with one way and even two way ability of control will devise a new IoT Cloud enabled world.

The Federal Government’s “Cloud First” policy mandates that agencies take full advantage of cloud computing benefits to maximize capacity utilization, improve IT flexibility and responsiveness, and minimize cost. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a mandatory government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. Advantages for business include being able to market to many federal agencies after a single FedRAMP review following the government’s “approve once...

The Internet of Things (IoT) has quickly become the next “be all to end all” in information technology. Touted as how cloud computing will connect everyday things together, it is also feared as the real- life instantiation of The Terminator’s Skynet, where sentient robot team with an omnipresent and all-knowing entity that uses technology to control, and ultimately destroy, all of humanity.

As a recent graduate, and now professor in the University of Connecticut's Business Analytics and Project Management masters program, I have a lot of conversations surrounding the topic of "Big Data" and questions such as, "What does that term actually mean?"
Big Data is a fairly new topic and what seems to be an elusive term for many. Conversations are important to help bring clarity to Big Data, as well as generate ideas about how we can shape, not only what it is, but also the future of where it's going.

Knowledge management, in business terms, refers to saving, developing, sharing, and effectively using knowledge for the benefit of organization. It refers to a multi-disciplined approach of achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.
Scientia potentia est (Latin proverb meaning "knowledge is power") attributed to 16th century philosopher Sir Francis Bacon is nowadays more valid than ever. Knowledge is power and knowledge management is the key to success.
Knowledge management, in business terms, refers to saving, developing, sharing, and effectively using knowledg...

It is interesting to me, how quickly the hype cycle of a good thing can turn it into a monster that will inevitably eat itself, leaving a much smaller – and much more useful – concept or toolset behind. It has happened over and over in high tech, one need only say “XML” to understand what I mean. It is definitely a useful tool for some jobs, but the “XML Everywhere” craze was insane. People declaring such patently false ideas as “It will end the need for programmers.”

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.